Baotou football fans in club T-shirts at a competition. [Photo/Baotou Daily]

When the Chinese Football Association announced its Football Association 2nd Division League Championship list recently, the football club in the city of Baotou, Inner Mongolia was on it, as an indication of its success in crowd-founding that it started last September and indicating that Baotou people will be enjoying more professional football competitions at home this year.

Last year, the city's football had a hard time just getting financing, when it came up with an emergency measure -- crowd-founding -- to get individuals to pitch in directly, in exchange for certain value-added services, depending on the amount they donate, such as club souvenirs and tickets. And the 70-day event was a real success, raising 2.1 million yuan ($320,000) from almost 10,000 supporters, and ensuring enough capital for the coming football season for the local club. This was also the first known event in China of trying crowd-funding to football.

One crowd-funding participant holds a support banner for Baotou and China football. [Photo/Baotou Daily]

Baotou football team at a competition with a good audience. [Photo/Baotou Daily]

In commenting on the effort, Liu Yinjiang, a football fan explains that they did it out of love and passion for football and desire to help Baotou football survive. But, as Yao Zhiqiang, the Baotou football club manager, says, crowd-funding to support a professional football team is not the ideal method, so they are in talks with companies to try to get them to cooperate and are developing their own products and brand activities to solve their financial problem.

The slogan of the Baotou effort was "Dream Crowd-funding, You and Me", referring to the football dream shared by fans and getting their support in helping the club through a difficult time. But the club does admit that the only way they can really repay their fans is by winning.